UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. — Tiger Woods speaks of him in reverential tones.
No one has received more attention in the months leading up to the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, mainly because of his reputation in this major over the last decade.
His name is Mike Davis, and he’s not even playing.
Davis is the executive director of the USGA, the man largely responsible for U.S. Open being held at a golf course unlike any other in its 120-year history.
He has been setting up courses at the U.S. Open since 2006 at Winged Foot, which was so tough that Geoff Ogilvy won without ever breaking par. Davis also was in charge of the U.S. Opens that produced the two lowest scores in championship history — Rory McIlroy’s 268 at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda in 2011 and Martin Kaymer’s 271 at Pinehurst No. 2 last year.
And now, Davis gets his hands on a course that allows for more options than ever.
“What we don’t know — none of the people in this room know, and all the players don’t know — what Mike is going to do and when he’s going to do it,” Woods said. “What tees he’s going to move up, what tees he’s going to leave back. And to what pin locations? We have a general idea. But it’s unlike any other major championship I’ve ever had to prepare for, having to hit so many different tee shots.”
The golf course is always important, especially at majors that rotate around the country. What makes this U.S. Open so different is that Chambers Bay has been getting far more attention than the guys who will be playing it.
That figures to change on Thursday when the U.S. Open — the first held in the Pacific Northwest — gets started in what figures to be a dry week on the edge of Puget Sound.
“I’m so ready to get this thing going and see what happens,” Davis said. “There’s that element you never quite know everything. And listen, we don’t know how the players are going to perform, really. There could be a runaway like Tiger Woods winning by 15 strokes in 2000. Or it could be nip-and-tuck right to the end.
“That’s the players that determine that — not the USGA.”
Davis used words like “concerned” and “worried” on Wednesday before softening those descriptions. His concern is that fescue fairways get too dry, too fast and too out of control. His worry is that the greens get too firm to receive shots the right way, especially on the par-3s.
The U.S. Open has a history to getting so close to the edge that the golf course is over the top.
“I would say the pressure comes from making sure the golf course plays properly,” Davis said. “We felt it last year at Pinehurst. We’ll feel the same pressure next year at Oakmont. But it’s different from year to year. Here, we’ve got more unknowns, just because we haven’t been here.”
For the first time, pars will change each day on two holes — No. 1 and No. 18 will alternate between being a par-4 and a par-5. Davis has two tees for the par-5 ninth, one that features a 100-foot drop in elevation, another that plays uphill.
And for the first time, the USGA did not list a yardage for the course because it can change so much. From the tips, it measures over 7,900 yards, though Davis said that was never the plan and that it would range between 7,300 yards and 7,700 yards.
Davis already got into the heads of players when he stated last month that if a player only has two practice rounds and has his caddie walk the course, that player “will not win.”
For Davis, his biggest concern is the notion that he alone can decide how the U.S. Open plays.
“That comment bothers me in the sense that it’s not all me,” Davis said. “It is not one person that does this. But there is a lot of flexibility to this course, so we can do a lot of things with the setup. And we — I underscore ’we,’ not ’I’ — will do that. But in hopefully a very reasonable way.”
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